Pilot
by sapphire-child
Summary: Charlie and Claire met roughly a week after their plane crashed. Or did they?


Title: Pilot  
Spoilers: Season one, episode one! Wow, we're really going back to origins with this one aren't we?  
Original post date: 2nd January 2006  
Summary: The first two days after the crash. Charlie and Claire POV respectively. See my Author's Note for more details.  
A/N: I got bunnied for this after re-watching "Pilot" part I and II with the audio-commentary and noticing certain scenes where Charlie and Claire could have possibly first seen each other. Oh and yes I do admit that I'm a terrible, terrible Fangirl to have even thought of this idea, let alone written it ;P

* * *

Now that everything had calmed down a little, now that the contractions had stopped and now that the wreckage of the plane had stopped _burning_, Claire felt a little more at ease. The big man – Hurley? – who had looked after her and timed her contractions had disappeared once he was sure she all right and she hadn't seen him since.

Everyone was busy making fires, organising a place to sleep as the sun went down but Claire still felt a little disorientated, like she wasn't really there. She found herself down by the water and sat down on the cooling sand to awkwardly unlace her shoes. She peeled them off carefully and then waded in up to her ankles, still holding her shoes in one hand and rubbing her stomach idly.

She hadn't felt the baby move for a while and she was beginning to worry a little. She tried to push the fear away, getting hysterical here wouldn't gain her anything apart from maybe a few minutes of attention and some empty words of reassurance from somebody who didn't even know her.

Closing her eyes and still worrying her stomach she began to meditate a little, focussing on the feel of the water rushing over her feet. When she opened her eyes again the sun was almost gone and she sighed a little as she put her shoes on and then trudged back up the beach again, holding her stomach.

She passed a few people, a man trying to get his mobile phone to work and then another man who ignored her and seemed to be trying to recruit someone else to help him build fire. Claire glanced at these two as she passed, trying not to eavesdrop but finding it irresistible. Nobody had said a word to her except for the doctor and Hurley.

'What's your name?' one was an Arabic looking man with curly hair; his voice was light and gentle.

'Me? Charlie.' And that one was quite obviously British. His voice was rough but not from gruffness. Claire caught a glimpse of big, jug-handled ears and scruffy blonde hair before she turned away.

'Charlie? We need help with the fire.'

'Okay, I'm on it. What's your name…?'

What his name was, Claire wouldn't find out until later. Their voices faded quickly the further she trudged away from them.

* * *

'Did anybody see that?'

'Yeah…'

Charlie scrambled towards the crowd of people who were all watching the jungle shake, Sayid following him swiftly. As he gazed out into the jungle, he realised quite suddenly that in his eagerness to see what was making _that_ noise he was standing in very close proximity to the woman in front of him. He quickly moved back and a little to his left and Sayid took his spot instead.

Everyone continued to turn their heads from side to side, trying desperately to see what was knocking down the trees. The howling and crashing culminated in a small crescendo and then ceased. A moment followed in which the survivors shared a grim silence.

_As if things couldn't get any worse._

'Terrific.' Charlie said dryly.

Nobody seemed to want to turn away but after several moments of shocked silence, people began to slowly drift back onto the beach, murmuring amongst themselves and glancing over their shoulders. Charlie was amongst the last ones – perhaps the thing in the jungle would come back? He'd always been a fairly curious sort of person but in this instance he thought perhaps he ought to just leave well enough alone. Sayid was already back at the fire they'd built several hours before and Charlie sat next to him again feeling decidedly jumpy.

'What do you think it was?' he asked.

Sayid didn't answer at first and Charlie thought he hadn't heard him but then he leant forward to poke the fire and said, quite simply, 'I don't know.'

Dissatisfied, Charlie hunkered down into his hoodie. Hopefully they'd be rescued before they had a chance to find out.

* * *

That first morning, everyone seemed to be talking about the noises that had come from the jungle the night before. Charlie found himself in one of the theorising clusters quite easily and listened half-interestedly to them all.

'It sounded like an animal, not exactly…' a black man was speaking, looking pensive and slightly confused. What else could it be other than an animal? Charlie thought snidely. But then it hadn't really _sounded_ much like any animal he'd ever heard before…

'That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it…' an older black woman said thoughtfully. Charlie had a feeling he'd seen her at some point the previous day.

'Really?' Charlie paid this one a little more attention. She was young; tall and slender with blonde hair and legs that went for miles. He eyed them appreciatively for a moment, not really listening to her as she asked, 'Where are you from?'

'The Bronx,' Black-Woman replied.

'Might be monkeys,' Charlie offered, looking hopefully around the circle of people. His eyes stopped on the blonde girl for a moment, hoping that she'd agree with him.

'Sure, it's monkeys,' a man sneered, his drawling voice incensing Charlie far more than it should. 'It's "Monkey Island".'

Charlie glared at him. He'd only been making a suggestion and it wasn't like anyone else seemed to have anything clever to say! Somebody else took over the conversation quickly. 'Theoretically, we don't even know if we're on an island, let alone…'

Sneering-Yankee smirked at him and began to wander off.

_Oh go on, sod off then._ Charlie tuned out. He felt slightly foolish now and he didn't like it at all. He glanced sulkily around the small circle of castaways and his eyes fell onto Leggy-Blonde. Again. She really was quite attractive after all…

His eyes continued to drift around the circle as the others talked, trying to familiarise some of their faces in his mind and as he did so, his eyes fell onto the woman next to Leggy-Blonde. She too was blonde but the similarities ended there. For one her hair was much longer and wavier than Leggy-Blonde. She was very little, slightly built and clearly she was _very_ pregnant.

He remembered seeing her and her enormously swollen belly the day before – hadn't she been the one he'd been standing behind when they heard that noise from the jungle? – but he hadn't really _noticed_ her. Nor had he considered how she had managed to survive the crash being so pregnant. She being suitably distracted, talking to a big guy with curly hair, Charlie took the opportunity to scan her for any injuries, surprised when he found that she only had three small scrapes, one on her chin and one on either knee.

She looked distracted and worried, not speaking or offering an opinion, just rubbing her stomach absently and biting her lip, occasionally inclining her head to someone else as they spoke. After a few minutes the heavyset man who had been talking to her gave her a smile and then wandered off in the direction of the fuselage.

She glanced around the circle again, still looking distinctly uncomfortable and then she looked over, _right at him._

Charlie froze, caught in her gaze like a deer in the headlights for a moment. She looked surprised for a moment too, like she hadn't been expecting to see someone staring so avidly at her but then she smiled tentatively and Charlie grinned back.

Her smile faded after a few moments however and she sort of nodded at him as she edged her way out of the circle and began to walk away.

_Where are you going?_

'Can we sit down?' Leggy-Blonde interrupted impatiently and everyone gladly flopped down onto the sand. Sometime when he'd been watching the pregnant girl, Black-Woman had disappeared as well. For a moment Charlie considered going and finding Pregnant-Girl again but disregarded the idea. For one thing, she had completely disappeared now and secondly, she would probably think he was stalking her or something.

He sat down with everyone else. Sod it. He'd probably never see Pregnant-Girl again once they got rescued anyways. Besides, heroin addicted rock stars and soon-to-be mums weren't the sort of people who mixed. And it's not like he was really that interested in her anyway. Leggy-Blonde was a much safer bet. What if Pregnant-Girl had lost her husband/boyfriend/whatever in the plane crash? Or she had even been flying to the states to see him? The big guy she'd been talking to might even be her husband/boyfriend/whatever although looking at the way they had been talking, Charlie doubted it. In any case, she probably wouldn't appreciate him cracking onto her under the circumstances. Not that he would anyway – pregnant girls were out of bounds.

Yes. Leggy-Blonde was definitely a safer bet.


End file.
